T.S. Eliot’s poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” the speaker questions the overall question of what a love song is. Though the poem does not speak about love directly, it casts out the feelings of isolation and the effects it can have on someone’s well being. The speaker states on lines 80-81, “Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis? But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed”  illustrates the pain and misery, and what it can turn an individual into, alike to Sherwood Anderson. In Sherwood Anderson’s novel Winesburg, Ohio Sherwood takes individuals just like the speaker of “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” and shapes them into grotesques, because of how their heartburning truth had taken over their life and brought them, emotionally, away from society.

                According to Anderson’s requirements of what a grotesque is, the main speaker of Eliot’s poem is defined as one as well. The speaker says on line 15, “The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window panes”, in which begins his imagery with the color yellow, symbolizing cowardice and deceit. Most of the characters in Anderson’s novel have cowardice tendencies, like Elizabeth Williard in “Mother”.  George Williard’s mother, Elizabeth Williard, had always been too scared to leave her husband, though she despises him and is deeply unhappy in her current situation. Anderson says on page 14, after watching a terrible situation between a helpless cat and a violent baker, “After that she did not look along the alleyway any more, but tried to forget the contest between the bearded man and the cat.” In Elizabeth’s situation, she would rather be blind to the ugly truth than see it, deceiving herself, and being a coward.

                Also, in that same line, Anderson and Eliot hold parallels. “Window panes” was a large symbol in Anderson’s novel, often times symbolizing a threshold or a barrier. In most of the situations, a character was looking out the window from inside somewhere, aching to leave, but for whatever reason, could not. For instance, in “Mother”, Elizabeth hopes to see guidance and hope when she looks out the window, but only finds a cold fight.

                Also, the speaker also personifies this yellow smoke, hinting that it could possibly be a person. On line 24, the speaker in Eliot’s poem says, “For the yellow smoke that slides up the street”. Smoke, a visible but at the same time invisible substance, is seen as a living thing in the poem. Many characters in Anderson’s novel holds the same form, like Wing Biddlebaum, who insists on being around people but at the same time draws back and is afraid to be fully seen. For instance, whenever Wing Biddlebaum would get in a rant, George would hope for him to continue but when Wing realizes he was going too far and almost opens up too much, he puts his hands in his pockets and returns to being invisible.